Katie Pritchard @ Pleasance Courtyard

Katie Pritchard's new Edinburgh Fringe show is a typhoon of energy and noise which loses jokes due to its own velocity

Review by Polly Glynn | 15 Aug 2022
  • Katie Pritchard

There’s no doubt that Katie Pritchard is having the time of her life in Disco Ball. She’s a constant firework of energy, bubbling and buzzing and beaming on stage, bursting with happiness that every single audience member is there in the room with her. 

Winner of the 2019 Musical Comedy Awards, Pritchard breaks into song in sustained bursts, and always bedecked in a bold, home-made costume. Who’d have thought ghost, toe and bumhole costumes would all be, largely-speaking, the same design? The songs, though sparkling with musicality, are a drought of jokes as the central premise is revealed in the first line almost every time. The tunes then outstay their welcome tenfold, repeating the same lines without raising the stakes or escalating the joke. The exception is Pritchard’s ‘unwanted advice diva ballad’, sung a la Celine Dion and following a more satisfying comedy song format.

She does add to the hour by recording her own audio descriptions for accessibility, and manages to slip in a few funny lines here and there, but across these and the rest of the show, it’s difficult to see Disco Ball as more than Pritchard coasting on her own, arguably infectious, enthusiasm.

Ultimately, you’re in good hands with Katie Pritchard if you want to spend an hour topping up your dopamine reserves and listening to some silly, cheery numbers but if you’re looking for belly laughs or an energy something set to anything other than maximum Duracell, this isn’t the show for you.


Katie Pritchard: Disco Ball, Pleasance Courtyard (Cellar), until 29 Aug (not 15), 6.05pm, £7-10